Monday, August 29, 2016

The Direction of Truth

Meaning "is always lost, sometimes for good, when in order to inspect them [tacit particulars] focally, attempts are made to withdraw ourselves from those feelings and perceptions, those particulars, within which one is dwelling in an act of knowing" (Prosch).

In other words, by rendering what is implicit explicit -- by turning it into the object of perception -- its meaning is lost: we see at instead of through, like a pair of dirty eyeglasses.

An aphorism or two pop into mind: for example, There exists no truth in the humanities that does not need to be rediscovered each week. And When things appear to us to be only what they appear to be, soon they appear to be even less.

Consider the first: it explains why religious truth can never be discovered just once; rather, faith is more like a continuous process of discovery; indeed, you could say that the endless discovery is the discovery, right? You can never really arrive at the (explicit) place toward which the (implicit) clues are pointing, or you would be God. Thinking otherwise is a little like looking for the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow.

Likewise, consider the second: to focus on the appearance instead of the reality toward which it points is to literally reverse the direction of the human vector. It is the quickest and most efficient way to bar or undo meaning. Not to bag on the left, but this is what they do, and why their worldview is so unavoidably nihilistic (because it flees from real meaning).

In fact, it brings to mind another aphorism: The left's theses are trains of thought that are carefully stopped before they reach the argument that demolishes them. They must not go to where the facts and clues lead, or they would be paralyzed. Thus, if you like your doctor you can keep your doctor. Period.

Along those same lyin's, The atheist devotes himself less to proving that God does not exist than to forbidding Him to exist. For one thing, it is strictly impossible to disprove the existence of God, so why waste time trying? This is why atheists construct their false gods which they then go about disproving. But in reality, if God doesn't exist, only He knows it.

While looking for those aphoristic nuggets of joy, I found several others, each looking at the phenomenon from a different angle:

To be stupid is to believe that it is possible to take a photograph of the place about which the poet sang. The scientistic/materialistic type must believe that the photograph is more "real" than the poem, but this only testifies to their own inadequacy, or lack of conformity, to the nonlocal object. It's like dogs, who presumably cannot hear melodies, rather, just noise. They cannot perceive, let alone appreciate, what the noise is pointing to.

Here is another malady that afflicts the left: Reducing another's thought to its supposed motives prevents us from understanding it. Misunderstanding is one thing. That is obviously susceptible to correction. Disunderstanding is another thing entirely, and it is what the left specializes in. It is why they do not deal in arguments, only slander.

Everything is trivial if the universe is not committed to a metaphysical adventure. Again, the adventure takes place in the space between tacit and focal knowledge, or between matter and (ultimately) God, if you like. As it so happens, this is precisely Ibn `Arabî's view, albeit expressed in slightly different terms.

That is, there is the empirical/material world and there is the intelligible/rational world. In between is what Corbin calls the imaginal world, and this is the space were religion "takes place," as it were. Importantly, it is not "imaginary," for which reason Corbin coined the term "imaginal."

We don't have sufficient timelessness to give a full airing of the subject -- that's a coming attraction -- but this space is where spiritual knowledge, visions, and theophanies take place. It is where (k) shades off into (n). And no, you cannot take a photograph of it. However, icons, cathedrals, and sacred music, for example, point to it. As does scripture, of course.

Which is why scripture functions in a manner similar to the Aphorisms: My brief sentences are dots in a pointillist painting. The difference is that no single mind can comprehend -- i.e., wrap its mind around -- scripture, and "see it whole," like a painting. Again, it provokes an adventure of endless discovery in its imaginal space.

Humanizing humanity again will not be an easy task after this long orgy of divinity. Oh my! You could say that when human beings are seen as merely human, they soon become even less. There is a kind of infinite space -- the imaginal space, to be exact -- between merely biological human beings and our innate deformity. But the distance between man and beast is but a single step. Or vote.

To deny God is to divinize man, because again, only a being with divine capacities can know that God doesn't exist. But man without God is no longer man, rather, just a randomly evolved primate. Man "takes place" in the space between biology and O. Which is why anti-religion leads to a toxic and destructive religiosity, every time. It brings about another kind of dystopian imaginal space we call Hell.

11 Comments:

...no single mind can comprehend -- i.e., wrap its mind around -- scripture, and "see it whole," like a painting. Again, it provokes an adventure of endless discovery in its imaginal space.

If someone had told me, a decade ago, that I would actually enjoy studying the Bible and seeing how it applies to reality here and now, I might well have laughed in his face. Much less any other work pertaining to religion or philosophy.

It is indeed an endless discovery.

Everything is trivial if the universe is not committed to a metaphysical adventure.

Just so. One of the horrors of atheism is that it makes the individual responsible for all meaning; a truly impossible burden. What a relief to know that our job is not to invent meaning, but rather to discover it.

One of Ibn Arabi's provocative ideas is that it is simultaneously invention and discovery, without it nevertheless being objective and real. I suppose you could say that the discoveries must be clothed in the imaginal.

Disunderstanding is another thing entirely, and it is what the left specializes in. It is why they do not deal in arguments, only slander.

That is a good word.

There is no point in trying to explain ourselves to people who call us "literally Hitler" or other names. They are simply trying to cow and bully us into shutting up. Then they declare victory. It has worked for so long, they are going to be pretty upset when we start saying that we just don't care.

"...The left's theses are trains of thought that are carefully stopped before they reach the argument that demolishes them. They must not go to where the facts and clues lead, or they would be paralyzed..."

Yep, I don't doubt that either. You've probably noticed, that the modernist, especially the Leftist, has no problem doubting anything at all... except what that desire to believe - that is indubitably true, and don't you doubt it!

Our soul is our tool to make meaning and discover meaning but our soul is an unfinished project that can not be realized without the adventure you talked about. It is both invention and discovery in that domain of adventure, that will help us to move toward our spiritual maturity. One should feel sorry for those who have not learned to guide themselves in the beautiful realm of the divine and not be bitter with them. I was watching the triumph of the will and was asking what kind of triumph is that that led to all that destruction. The real triumph of the human will is when it knows how to aligned itself with the divine will. Religion is a psychological apparatus that help the human to understand himself and to develop his potentials in the light of the light of the divine.. It is an experiential process that is judged by what it accomplishes,by the difference it makes in human affairs,by helping the seeker through oneness to avoid being scattered in the manyness of the world.

My 11 year old son is having his doubts about God & religion. He noticed that a person he recently met posts only pictures of food on her Instagram account. I used it as an occasion to teach him that there are different planes of existence, and that many people occupy planes hardly above the beasts, whereas all the interesting action occurs on the planes above.

"I used it as an occasion to teach him that there are different planes of existence, and that many people occupy planes hardly above the beasts, whereas all the interesting action occurs on the planes above."

If one can even imagine evil, this seems to indicate the existence of God. Paradoxically. For where would a person get such an idea but from God? -- ie. that there are things which are evil, then there must be things which are not: things which are good. I think by definition beasts cannot do this.

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Location: Floating in His Cloud-Hidden Bobservatory, Inside the Centers for Spiritual Disease Control and Pretension, Tonga

Who spirals down the celestial firepole on wings of slack, seizes the wheel of the cosmic bus, and embarks upin a bewilderness adventure of higher nondoodling? Who, haloed be his gnome, loiters on the threshold of the transdimensional doorway, looking for handouts from Petey? Who, with his doppelgägster and testy snideprick, Cousin Dupree, wields the pliers and blowtorch of fine insultainment for the ridicure of assouls? Who is the gentleman loaffeur who yoinks the sword from the stoned philosopher and shoves it in the breadbasket of metaphysical ignorance and tenure? Whose New Testavus for the Restavus blows the locked doors of the empyrean off their rusty old hinges and sheds a beam of intense darkness on the world enigma? Who is the Biggest Fakir of the Vertical Church of God Knows What, channeling the roaring torrent of 〇 into the feeble stream of cyberspace? Who is the masked pandit who lobs the first water balloon out the motel window at the annual Raccoon convention? Who is your nonlocal partner in disorganized crimethink? Shut your mouth! But I'm talkin' about bʘb! Then we can dig it!